Reconciliation bill headed back to the House after parliamentarian rules two minor provisions can't be included in final bill -- 10 House Dems report being threatened

By Chris Frates and Meredith Shiner

03/25/10 06:48 AM EDT

It's Thursday. "Although we've Pulsed to the end of the road." (h/t: Lea Fisher)

BREAKING – RECONCILIATION WILL HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE HOUSE: The reconciliation bill will have to go back to the House for another vote after Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin ruled early this morning that two minor provisions violated the chamber's rules and could not be included in the final bill, according to Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesman Jim Manley. Both provisions made technical changes to the bill's Pell Grant regulations. All told, 16 lines of text will be removed from the 153-page bill, Manley told reporters of the ruling as business on the Senate floor wrapped early Thursday morning. A spokeswoman for the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman, Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), reiterated that the changes are "minor" and won't create problems when the altered bill goes back to the House for approval. The reconciliation bill is designed to make changes to the newly-minted health care reform law. “The parliamentarian struck two minor provisions tonight from the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, but this bill’s passage in the Senate is still a big win for the American people. These changes do not impact the reforms to the student loan programs and the important investments in education. We are confident the House will quickly pass the bill with these minor changes,” Harkin spokeswoman Kate Cyrul wrote. The all-night session came as Republicans offered 29 amendments in a final attempt to scuttle the bill, or at least force Democrats into taking politically difficult votes that could be used against them in November. Democrats steadily rejected each amendment, arguing that any changes would send the bill back to the House for another vote, an outcome Senate Democrats worked mightily to avoid before the parliamentarian's ruling early Thursday. Reid finally adjourned the marathon session at about 2:45 a.m. after striking a deal with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to return at 9:45 a.m. today and hold a final vote on the bill around 2 p.m. – news that was greeted with audible sighs of relief from tired senators.

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AN OPENING FOR THE PUBLIC OPTION? – HuffPo’s Ryan Grim reports: “Democratic leadership no longer has to worry that additional amendments would send it back to the House, since it must return to the lower chamber regardless. The Senate is now free to put to the test that much-debated question of whether 50 votes exist for a public option. Democrats could also elect to expand Medicare or Medicaid, now that they only need 50 votes in the Senate and the approval of the House. … The Huffington Post interviewed House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Wednesday evening and asked if he thought he could have gotten the public option back through a second time, when the House voted on Sunday, even without those members who had left. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said emphatically. Clyburn added that the problem for the public option has never been in the House. The problem has been in the Senate. And now the upper chamber has a chance to vote on it.”

GOP SEES RULING AS A WIN – Roll Call’s John Stanton reports: “Indeed, a GOP aide acknowledged the changes are largely inconsequential. ‘The policy doesn’t matter,’ the aide said, explaining that Republicans caught what amount to drafting errors in the bill earlier in the week. Nevertheless, the Republican aide said the GOP sees the ruling as a win, noting that Democrats were forced into dozens of difficult votes on a host of political issues, including tax cuts, Medicare spending, federal funding for Viagra prescriptions for convicts and other amendments. In fact, the aide indicated that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had been confident Frumin would rule in his favor throughout the vote-a-rama and kept the points of order in his back pocket until late in the evening to ensure Democrats made tough political votes.”

** A message from Kaiser Permanente: More than 75 percent of health care costs in America come from chronic conditions and 80 percent of those costs come from patients with multiple conditions. Americans need individually focused, team-based care for chronic conditions. Health care IT should be focused on supporting this team care. **

POTUS TODAY – At 2 p.m. the president talks reform at the University of Iowa Field House.

MORE UGLINESS – NYT’s Carl Hulse reports: “Democratic lawmakers have received death threats and been the victims of vandalism because of their votes in favor of the health care bill, lawmakers and law enforcement officials said Wednesday, as the Congressional debate over the issue headed toward a bitter and divisive conclusion. Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, said at least 10 House members had raised concerns about their personal security since Sunday’s climactic vote, and Mr. Hoyer characterized the cases as serious. … The dark and personal tone of the final stages of the health fight could complicate Republican efforts to maintain their attacks on the legislation if they are seen as inciting an undue level of outrage and, conversely, could bolster Democrats if opponents of the measure are seen as breaching the boundaries of civility.”

EVEN STAFF HAS BEEN TARGETED – RC’s Stanton reports: “Tea party protesters are reportedly planning a protest at the home of Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin later this week, prompting Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer to work with local law enforcement officials to ensure Frumin’s safety. Gainer said Wednesday night that while neither Frumin nor his family have been threatened, activists have discussed protesting at his house.”

GLITCH TO BE FIXED – WSJ’s Laura Meckler and Janet Adamy report: “The Obama administration said Wednesday it would issue regulations to make clear that insurers must cover sick children, fixing what appears to be a glitch in the new health law. President Barack Obama has repeatedly touted the requirement as one of the law's most important benefits, and one that will take effect this year. But officials suggested Wednesday that the provision was not precisely written and that the Department of Health and Human Services would issue regulations to make its intent clear.” Subscription:

WILL IT SLOW COSTS? – USA Today’s Richard Wolf reports: “President Obama's restructuring of the nation's health care system will make it easier for poor and sick Americans to get and keep insurance. What's less clear is whether it will reduce health care costs for most Americans, as the White House says it will. Medical costs are rising fast — up 5.7% last year, while the economy declined 1.1%, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In the next 10 years, health spending is projected to rise 6.1%, reaching $4.5 trillion, or nearly 20% of the economy. Some critics and even proponents of the law say it won't do enough to slow down that trend. The health insurance industry, blasted by Obama for recent premium increases in California and other states, argues that the unsolved problem is the prices charged by doctors, hospitals, drugmakers and others.”

ACHIEVEMENT OR MISSED OPPORTUNITY? – NYT’s David Herszenhorn reports: “When the last swords in the great health care clash finally clatter to the ground, and Congressional Democrats head home to savor their victory, a question that may still nag at them — and the party’s liberal base — is whether they missed a last, best chance to create the government-run insurance plan known as the public option. But Wednesday night, as the Senate stood on the verge of approving the budget reconciliation bill with the final health care revisions, Democrats resisted a late, last round of pressure from liberal advocates to include the public option in the legislation, saying they were willing to take their winnings and call it a day. In a show of self-restraint, the Democrats said they had agreed among themselves to resist the temptation to make any amendments and would work to approve the bill without any changes that would require it to be sent back to the House for another vote. The public option, they said, could wait for another day, another vote, another fight — even though the parliamentary process playing out on the Senate floor gave them a rare chance to enact it with a simple majority, a chance unlikely to come around again soon.”

W.H.: REFORM WILL HOLD UP IN COURT – POLITICO’s Glenn Thrush reports: “White House officials say that the 14 state lawsuits challenging health reform on Constitutional grounds are legally baseless, politically motivated attacks that are bound to die quickly in court. But while professing confidence in their legal arguments, one senior administration official conceded Obama’s lawyers ‘can’t presume to speculate’ what will happen once the cases are thrown to courts dominated by GOP-appointed jurists, including the Supreme Court.”

OBAMA TAKES HEAT FROM WOMEN’S GROUPS – WaPo’s Rob Stein reports: “President Obama, who quietly signed an executive order Wednesday reaffirming that no federal funds can be used for abortion, is facing fury from a core part of his constituency: women's advocates. The White House agreement to issue the order to reassure some antiabortion Democrats about the health-care legislation has stunned and infuriated many women's groups and abortion rights advocates.”

STUPAK CHALLENGER GETS PRO-CHOICE ENDORSEMENTS – WSJ’s Laura Meckler reports: “Two abortion-rights groups, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC, endorsed his challenger in the Democratic primary, Connie Saltonstall, a former Charlevoix County commissioner. ‘Connie is a passionate advocate for women and their reproductive rights and has a strong record of promoting and protecting women’s health,’ Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. NARAL’s president, Nancy Keenan, was harsher. ‘The voters in Michigan’s 1st District are looking for an alternative to Bart Stupak. For years, he has attacked women’s freedom and privacy and, for the last several months, seized the national spotlight as he held health care reform hostage to his anti-choice political views. The clock is ticking on Mr. Stupak’s ‘15 minutes of fame,’’ she said in a statement.”

DAVIS STANDS ALONE – WaPo’s Perry Bacon reports: “Rep. Artur Davis, long regarded as one of the most promising of a younger generation of black politicians that has emerged over the past decade, took a bold stance this week as he seeks to become the first African American governor of Alabama: distancing himself from the biggest legislative achievement of the first black president. … But in opposing the health-care bill, Davis, a longtime Obama ally who was one of the first lawmakers to back his White House run, split from the other 41 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They not only all voted for the legislation, but cast it in historic terms as an extension of the policies of the civil rights era.”

PULSE OP-ED:

WaPo editorial: “These (legal) challenges are not frivolous. The states argue that the individual mandate -- forcing individuals to purchase health insurance -- stretches and distorts Congress's constitutional power ‘to regulate Commerce … among the several states.’ A person who declines to buy insurance is not engaged in interstate commerce and should therefore lie beyond the reach of Congress, they say. … If the health-insurance mandate is ruled constitutional, Congress undoubtedly will find itself tweaking and revising it over the years. If it's not constitutional, that doesn't mean health reform as a whole is lost.” WSJ editorial: “Democrats dragged themselves over the health-care finish line in part by repeating that voters would like the plan once it passed. Let's see what they think when they learn their insurance costs will jump right away. Even before President Obama signed the bill on Tuesday, Caterpillar said it would cost the company at least $100 million more in the first year alone. Medical device maker Medtronic warned that new taxes on its products could force it to lay off a thousand workers. Now Verizon joins the roll of businesses staring at adverse consequences. … The message to workers was clear: Expect changes for the worse to your health benefits as the direct result of this bill, and maybe as soon as this year.”

NYT's Gail Collins: “Really, there is just so much transformation a person can handle. One day you go to bed worrying about death panels. Next day you wake up and health care reform is so trendy that the coolest spring accessory is a pre-existing condition. We can only handle so much newness at once. So it’s been comforting to return to the U.S. Senate and find that it’s exactly as insane as it was last month and the month before that.”

WaPo's David Broder: “Inevitably, the cost of the guarantees embodied in this bill will confront a future Congress with hard choices these legislators finessed. And yet, as John Dingell can testify better than anyone, it is worth celebrating, as Obama did, the achievement of a nation that did what is hard, and necessary, and right.”

Karl Rove in WSJ: “Democratic hopes that passing health-care reform will help them politically will be unfulfilled because ObamaCare only benefits a small number of people in the short run. Until the massive subsidies to insurance companies fully ramp up in 2017, this bill will be more pain than gain for most Americans.”

(EDITED BY TIM ALBERTA)

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Authors:

About The Author

Chris Frates began covering politics before he was old enough to vote. Since his early days covering town council meetings run by three guys behind a folding table, Frates has been fortunate enough to cover government on every level.

An original Politico, Frates covers the intersection of money, politics and policy inhabited by Washington’s lobbyists and writes about national politics. During the health care reform debate, Frates wrote for the paper and was the lead writer of Live Pulse, the website’s health care reform blog. Frates also founded and wrote Politico Pulse, the popular, daily health reform e-mail briefing that quickly became Washington’s must-read crib sheet.

Before coming to Washington, Frates spent more than four years at The Denver Post where he wrote about state politics. Frates covered the 2004 Democratic takeover of the Colorado statehouse, a forerunner of the political tsunami that would hit Congress two years later, and the 2006 governor’s race.

His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Dallas Morning News and dozens of other publications. Frates has covered three statehouses and numerous campaigns.

His political analysis has been featured on the CBS Evening News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, WTOP and many other national and local television and radio programs.

Of all the important people he has interviewed, Frates still counts Mister Rogers among his favorites.

About The Author

Meredith Shiner is a congressional reporter. Before joining POLITICO in fall 2009, she earned her bachelor's degree in political science and English from Duke University. At Duke, Shiner was the sports editor and, later, a weekly columnist for the university's independent newspaper, The Chronicle. She also covered Duke's renowned (or perhaps more appropriately, reviled) men's basketball team, though she concedes her timing was terrible, as the Blue Devils won the national title the season after she graduated.

Shiner grew up north of Chicago, a city that cultivated her love of politics, sports and deep-dish pizza.